Posts Tagged ‘crash bandicoot’
Podcast: E3 Franchise Legacies
Lots of games were announced at E3 this year and many of them come from long running franchises. With Jam on holiday, Fred brings in guests Vos and Shawn (from the Horribly Awkward podcast) to discuss the lineage of what was announced. Some franchises are stronger than you may remember, whereas others…not so much.
Podcast: Genre Study – Platformers (Part 2)
This week Fred and Jam wrap up the platformer genre study. They start with analysis the 16-bit era, which many consider to be the pinnacle of 2D platforming, and then move on to 3D. 3D platformers were an interesting impasse in that they marked the future of game technology and design while also making way for a strong batch of platformers that refused the third dimension.
Podcast: Game Club – Crash Bandicoot
Fred Rojas and Rob “Trees” discuss the 3rd party Playstation 1 title that basically became the mascot for Sony throughout the generation. The sordid past and creation of the eventual bandicoot is discussed as well as the full campaign and relevance. We also announce this month’s game club title: Ico.
Feature: Mascots
Mascots, you have to love them. No, wait, you don’t. For the most part mascots have been one of the dark spots on a game publisher’s marketing blitz. At first there was only one iconic mascot, Mario from Super Mario Bros., and frankly he was an accidental mascot that Nintendo had never imagined would become its poster child. After Mario other companies were consistently trying to establish mascots no matter the negative cost to the consumer. Mario is an exception not because he’s a particularly good or mistakenly genius mascot, he’s just iconic because his game was the catalyst to the return of video games after the crash of 1983. During the mid 80s Nintendo established a handful of strong franchises that are beloved by many fans and despite Mario being the “leader” per se, he’s definitely not alone when Nintendo wants to sell a product. I would argue that Link (from Legend of Zelda), Kirby (from Kirby’s Dream Land), Pikachu (from Pokemon), and to certain extent Donkey Kong (from Donkey Kong/Donkey Kong Country) and Samus (from Metroid). Much like Disney, Nintendo brings with it a cast of characters and franchises that all assist the overall brand in creating long running quality games. Everyone wanted to have that same wonderful family in the 90s (all of the above named characters had at least one title on the NES by 1992), but they seemed to miss the point that these characters were not created to be mascots, they just happened to get popular enough to become mascots.
Gaming History 101 